If abortion weren't an issue, what would American politics look like?

[PetraG]

So we’d still be debating Socialism v Capitalism

Or more generally Collectivism v Individualism

Catholics do not believe in either Marxist socialism or laissez faire capitalism, so we know where that leaves us. I think it may have been Marx who set that up as the field of play; I think that very false dichotomy is why we are in such an inherently divisive political situation that would even split the Church, if it could.

Comes down to this:
(1) Do you believe the group identity is primary and individual identity secondary (Collectivist)

(2) Or do you believe the individual identity is primary and group identity is secondary (Individualist)

No, that is not the only way to look at the role of government in the lives of people in a pluralistic society. The current divisions set up in US politics are CERTAINLY not the only two ways to run a government.

I wish we were seeing the Church on one side and modernism on the other, but that really is not the way things are splitting in politics in the US. I used to say that there was a time when the Democrats and the Republicans seemed to rally behind different virtues but now it seems they rally behind different vices or different forms of the same vices. I really do believe that is still true.

On top of the way things have been going since World War II, we have not decided where the powers that come to average people via personal computers and the internet fits in to a peaceful and just society. The power to communicate instantly, indiscriminately, anonymously and with not only words but sound and moving picture has been a kind of a bomb thrown into the middle of our civic and personal lives. We are awash in not only information, but also gossip, rumor and disingenuous attempts to manipulate of popular opinion. I don’t mean just on “both” sides. I mean pretty much on all sides. I joke that Facebook is the work of the devil, but that isn’t entirely a joke, let’s face it.

To answer the original question, if abortion were not an issue, we would still be wrestling with two political parties who both try to divide voters as if there were only two ways to look at the questions we are facing and no way to compromise. I don’t think that problem would evaporate if the medical establishment decided to quit performing abortions tomorrow; I really don’t. The battle on all the other fronts (and the odd impression that endless battling is the way to establish a peaceful nation) would still be there.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

But in Nixon’s defense, was the abortion issue looming very large at the time he appointed them?

(I was a little kid at the time . I wasn’t following politics along with my Saturday morning cartoons )

 

[PatK63]

When the country was founded the divide was rural and urban states. It is still that way only the issues are different!

 

[farronwolf]

If abortion wasn’t an issue in politics or society today, politics would look pretty much exactly like it does today.

Abortion just happens to be one of the things that starts to divide the country. We have become a tribal society, and many people simply just don’t think for themselves anymore. Heck on this site even, if the Church says X, that is they way it is and it is heresy to even question the reasoning for it.

It is easier to tune into tv, radio or a podcast that aligns with your current belief system and get justification for your position, whether the information is accurate or not, folks still tune in. We spend vast amounts of time on social media or the internet expressing our views, or reading views that align with our own, and condemn those that disagree with us, even though we have no idea of what the person on the other side of data stream is like in reality.

The immense amounts of money in US politics today keeps people from doing the right thing. Since the Citizens United decision, the amount of money is unlimited, causing extreme party politics. Any politician who works with the other side to do something constructive often is vilified for doing what they were elected to do and then the money dries up ending their political career.

We have become a me society. If it isn’t about “me” or they way I believe it should be it is wrong. We aren’t mature enough as a society any more to realize others don’t always agree with our positions and can’t listen or discuss topics long enough to see why someone has a different position that we do.

God gave us rules for how to live, but he also gave us free will to follow his rules or disregard them if we choose. He doesn’t love us any less if we choose not to follow his rules. Yet we as his children often treat others as if we hate them when they choose to do something that we disagree with. Whether it is how they live their lives, or what they think should or shouldn’t be allowed by our government. We often think that we need to force people to do what we believe, instead of letting them exercise their own free will.

There are many, many reasons why our politics is the way it is today. Abortion is just an easy thing to pin it on. I have stated previously, using abortion as a reason to vote one way or another is taking the easy way out, and give many people a reason to ignore any other issues or educate themselves on other issues by simply saying, I am voting for them because they are either pro life, or on the other side, pro choice.

I started watching Why We Hate on the Discovery channel. There is a lot information in there which explains how easily we are turned into a tribal society.

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www.discovery.com

 

[Aquinas11]

I wish we were seeing the Church on one side and modernism on the other,

that would also be Individualism (Church) v. Collectivism (modernism), since Christ’s Church is premised on each person being responsible for their own actions/thoughts. When I go to confession I don’t confess my neighbor’s sins. But that is what modernism preaches, a kind of Collectivist guilt where I am responsible for sins of my neighbor (e.g. members of my nation if I live in a country that is perceived as polluting Earth, etc).

 

[PetraG]

that would also be Individualism (Church) v. Collectivism (modernism), since Christ’s Church is premised on each person being responsible for their own actions/thoughts. When I go to confession I don’t confess my neighbor’s sins . But that is what modernism preaches, a kind of Collectivist guilt where I am responsible for sins of my neighbor (e.g. members of my nation if I live in a country that is perceived as polluting Earth, etc).

No, the Church is neither “individualistic” nor “socialistic.”

Look at the contrast Pope St. John Paul II made between the fundamental error of socialism on one hand:
Continuing our reflections, and referring also to what has been said in the Encyclicals Laborem exercens and Sollicitudo rei socialis, we have to add that the fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism. Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good or evil. Man is thus reduced to a series of social relationships, and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decision disappears, the very subject whose decisions build the social order. From this mistaken conception of the person there arise both a distortion of law, which defines the sphere of the exercise of freedom, and an opposition to private property. A person who is deprived of something he can call “his own”, and of the possibility of earning a living through his own initiative, comes to depend on the social machine and on those who control it. This makes it much more difficult for him to recognize his dignity as a person, and hinders progress towards the building up of an authentic human community.

and contrasts that to the also-false promises of unfettered capitalism:

Another kind of response, practical in nature, is represented by the affluent society or the consumer society. It seeks to defeat Marxism on the level of pure materialism by showing how a free-market society can achieve a greater satisfaction of material human needs than Communism, while equally excluding spiritual values. In reality, while on the one hand it is true that this social model shows the failure of Marxism to contribute to a humane and better society, on the other hand, insofar as it denies an autonomous existence and value to morality, law, culture and religion, it agrees with Marxism, in the sense that it totally reduces man to the sphere of economics and the satisfaction of material needs.
From Centesimus Annus (1 May 1991) | John Paul II

 

[Aquinas11]

unfettered capitalism:

assertion was individualism, not capitalism. Church is based on individualism, since I confess my own sins, not my neighbor’s sins. Not discussing economic systems.

 

[PetraG]

assertion was individualism , not capitalism. Church is based on individualism, since I confess my own sins, not my neighbor’s sins. Not discussing economic systems.

The term individualism carries a lot of baggage that goes well beyond confessing your own sins. There aren’t any Popes who write about individualism as some kind of a Christian virtue, because it isn’t. No, the Church defines individualism as a false “am I my brother’s keeper” mindset that tries to compartmentalize our relationships with others and our relationship with God. That is how the Church understands and uses that term…for example:

CCC 2425 The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with “communism” or “socialism.” She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of “capitalism,” individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor.[Cf. Centesimus annus 10; 13; 44] Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for “there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market.”[Centesimus annus 34] Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended.

and

CCC 2792 Finally, if we pray the Our Father sincerely, we leave individualism behind, because the love that we receive frees us from it. The “our” at the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer, like the “us” of the last four petitions, excludes no one. If we are to say it truthfully, our divisions and oppositions have to be overcome. (Mt 5:23-24, Matt 6:14-15)

So–while I don’t disagree with what you are actually saying, I do disagree that the term individualism is the one the Church associates with the mindset you are talking about. No, the Church would not use that term to refer to the responsibility, diginity and right to self-determination and so on of the individual person, which is what I take you to be defending (and rightly so).

 

[Aquinas11]

The term individualism carries a lot of baggage that goes well beyond confessing your own sins

Quote me saying it only involves confessing your own sins.

CCC language all defines individualism in terms of economic systems which I clearly was being more generally than with “individual identity primary, group identity secondary”

 

[PetraG]

uote me saying it only involves confessing your own sins.

CCC language all defines individualism in terms of economic systems which I clearly was being more generally than with “individual identity primary, group identity secondary”

Just choose another way to express that thought, please. There are people who refer to the Church’s defense of right social structures as “socialism,” but that’s not right, either. Those words have associations that go beyond and even against what the Church teaches.

 

[Aquinas11]

Just choose another way to express that thought, please.

I did, I just quoted how I defined it above - “individual identity primary, group identity secondary”, as opposed to opposite “group identity primary, individual identity secondary”, suggest scrolling up , its all there

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I would vote Democrats in an instant if they weren’t anti-Marian.

There’s a reason Catholics were the backbone of the Democratic Party in the late 20th century.

What do you mean by “anti-Marian”?

Surely their stance on abortion, reproductive issues, gay marriage, gender issues, and so on, grieves the Immaculate Heart of Mary very much, but can they specifically be said to be “anti-Marian”?

 

[blackforest]

I get that. But where our Church is such a diverse one - one bread, one body, with Catholics voting all over the map - I’m not sure if those of us who “lean liberal” need any divine intervention. Prayer for pro-choicers is good, but “liberal” is such a broad label . . . Don’t get me wrong. I always welcome prayer from others but don’t feel that God necessarily must to step in and correct me for my political views. We should all vote carefully and prayerfully.

 

[Welshrabbit]

panic over the “population bomb,”

???

Can you explain what this is? Is it in relation to the baby boom?

 

[TK421]

TK421:

I would vote Democrats in an instant if they weren’t anti-Marian.

There’s a reason Catholics were the backbone of the Democratic Party in the late 20th century.

What do you mean by “anti-Marian”?

Surely their stance on abortion, reproductive issues, gay marriage, gender issues, and so on, grieves the Immaculate Heart of Mary very much, but can they specifically be said to be “anti-Marian”?

Obviously they don’t say/think that, but all of the byproducts of the sexual revolution related to women are very much anti-Marian and unfortunately the lobby groups associated with these movements eventually made their way into the Democratic platform.

As late as the 1980s and even 1990s Democrats and Republicans were somewhat of a mixed bag but that is gone.

 

[Peeps]

What if for one full election cycle we put every ounce of our energy making sure every community in America had a good, welcoming, system of real support for women in crisis pregnancy and women with young children. Housing, job protection, sterling quality daycare at no cost, income stability, education, medical and emotional support.

Sad to say, I’m pretty certain that quite a good percentage of women who choose to abort are well-off, have a good family, supportive partner, and health care insurance.

I’m also pretty certain that a good percentage of women who choose NOT to abort are poor, have little family support and possibly even live in a family where there is some kind of addiction and perhaps gang involvement, have no husband or partner, and have no insurance other than Medicaid.

So sad. I don’t think the material aspects matter when it comes to “reproductive choice.”

I do agree with you, though, that as Christians we need to make sure that material needs, including paying the health care and hospital bills, are never a barrier to a woman to choose life instead of abortion.

 

[Peeps]

If abortion was removed from the equation, Trump would still retain the support of the Religious Right and most older Catholics who like his stands on immigration (build the wall), health care (you are on your own), climate change (it’s a hoax) and help for the poor (cut it because their scammers).

I respectfully disagree.

I voted for Trump not because I agreed with his stands on the issues you mention, or his personality, but because I wanted desperately for Secy of State Clinton to lose the election. I thought she would win by a landslide and my heart was sick throughout the evening (I had to play for a choir concert). When I got home from the choir concert, I turned the TV on with a sinking heart, sure that I would be watching the celebration at the Hillary Clinton Headquarters. But no! A miracle occurred! I sat down and didn’t move again until around 3 in the morning when it was obvious that Donald Trump had done the impossible and beaten Secy of State Clinton.

I have to say that I agree with much of Pres. Trump’s policies regarding the economy because I have seen with my own eyes in my city the wonderful results of his tax cuts and regulation cuts.

Immigration is an issue I know little about, but I think that somehow, what many people miss is that always, throughout the history of the U.S., immigrants have had to enter the country LEGALLY, and this has never been an issue…until our politicians decided to make Pres. Trump look like a bigot and racist, and demanding that EVERYONE can just come on in to the U.S.! That is so very wrong on many accounts, and Catholics should not be promoting this disobedience of immigration laws that have been essential in helping the immigrants themselves to achieve success and find happiness in their new country!

I do agree with Pres. Trump that we should be careful about putting too many resources into “climate change,” an issue that again, is being used as a political football, or more accurately, a political bowling ball to knock “deniers” over. There is nothing wrong with a healthy skepticism. I work in a hospital lab, and always, ALWAYS, I question my results and make darn sure that my conclusions and reports can be PROVEN! If I cannot be certain of a result (it happens), I make sure to add the phrase, “organism identified as most closely resembling (name of possible organism).” I think that all climate change devotees would be wise to say, “it appears that…” or “it seems likely that…” rather than “Only idiots deny climate change.”

As for “help for the poor”–I think that much of the government help only keeps the poor poor. The instant they start “moving on up to the East side,” their aid is cut. I don’t blame Pres. Trump for wanting to come up with programs that actually help the poor to help themselves OUT of poverty! Unfortunately, the Democrats and other naysayers have decided that Pres. Trump hates poor people. Grr.

 

[Aquinas11]

a lot of Catholics (especially those who frequent this forum) have no interest in supporting other areas of Catholic Social Teaching. In fact, many of them will argue that their faith does not call them to care about social issues–other than abortion.

No, all Catholics believe their faith calls them to care about all social issues (including healthcare, taking care of poor, elderly, etc) what separates them is just who is best entity to perform that task

(1) Government or
(2) Private Charities

With (1), social issues are handled with taxes, thus involuntary charity.
With (2), social issues are handled with voluntary contributions thus voluntary charity

God’s free will is consistent with voluntary decisions not involuntary decisions hence (2) seems most in line with Catholic teaching. But I realize fellow Catholics can reasonably disagree. The point is all Catholics support social issues

 

[Aquinas11]

Ok perhaps I wasn’t clear. Let’s take an example. You’re walking by the river and open your lunchbox to eat a sandwich. As you’re about to start eating it, a homeless man comes up and asks if he can have some.

(A) in this scenario, you voluntarily give him half of your sandwich

(B) in this scenario, right after he asks for some of your sandwich, some men with guns show up, point them at you and order you to give him half your sandwich or you’re going to jail . You comply and give him half your sandwich

So is (A) or (B) more in line with Catholic teaching?

 

[blackforest]

It was the title Paul Ehrlich’s famous book, which made a bunch of alarmist predictions about population overgrowth that never came to fruition. https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000003712862/the-population-bomb.html